Jennifer Wright Dorr at Union Plus sends us this feature examining Union Plus credit and debt counseling services for union members.

 Desperately wishing to be free of debt, America’s workers too often turn to unscrupulous and ineffective debt reduction companies for help. But Patti Schlittenhart, a member of California School Employees Association (CSEA) Local 248, made a better choice. When she realized she needed help with her budget, she turned to the Union Plus Credit Counseling program because she “knew that if the service was backed by the union, it had to be reputable.”

If new House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gets everything on his budget-cutting wish list, it would be, says a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI):

a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to wealthy Americans and corporations and a wholesale dismantling of the social programs that all Americans rely on, including Medicare and Social Security.

The nation is in its 20th straight month with unemployment above 9 percent. The electorate in November told lawmakers to “focus less on petty partisan bickering and more on jobs, jobs, jobs,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Tomorrow, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will detail the choices elected leaders across the country are facing and outline working people’s vision for the future of the American economy when he delivers a major speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Rather than helping working people to save their homes, banks foreclosed on more than 1 million properties last year, which will slow the economic recovery and obstruct job growth, especially in construction.

Be careful what you wish for, it might come true—with lots of bad consequences.  The leader of a Big Business group says CEOs and other corporate leaders joining the Republican call for the repeal of health care reform should heed that warning.

Register now for the 2011 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference, Feb. 8–10 in Washington, D.C. With unemployment above 9.0 percent for more than 20 months, thousands of union, environmental, business, community and elected leaders will discuss how to create millions of good green jobs across the United States. The conference is the leading forum for sharing ideas and strategies to grow a green economy that creates good jobs, addresses global warming and other environmental problems and preserves America’s economic and environmental security.

California’s paid family leave law “has been remarkably successful” and received high marks from both employers and workers, according to a new study released yesterday by researchers from UCLA/City University of New York (CUNY) and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

Several disturbing items out now as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner gets set to meet next week with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

In a bitter battle late last year, Republicans in Congress filibustered an extension of the emergency unemployment insurance (UI) program for more than 1.4 million long-term jobless workers—and they didn’t approve the bill until they won an extension of Bush tax cuts for the rich.